DRUG-WAR SUPPORTERS TURNED FREEDOM FIGHTERS

Hartford, CT-

Cliff Thornton hopes word of mouth will spread enough peace to end the war
on drugs and freedom. Every time he pitches his common-sense message to a
college class, an NAACP meeting or a Rotary Luncheon, he aims to convince
one person of prohibition's failures. "If I get one now, it will be two
next time, three the next time and then it will grow exponentially because
they'll all tell their friends," he says, until public opinion shifts.

Educating citizens is one of the main strategies the 54-year-old Thornton
and his wife, Margaret, employ with Efficacy, the human-rights organization
they started out of their living room in Windsor, CT, 10 minutes north of
Cliff's native Hartford, and a bit farther from Margaret's native West
Hartford.

Efficacy evolved from radio shows they produced in 1992 at the University
of Hartford. Each week, they researched and discussed social and racial
issues. Tackling drugs took three shows: drug history, crime and violence,
and Drug War economics. Initially, Cliff says, "we had no interest. But it
sort of took on a life of its own." As the truth emerged, listeners wanted
more and more: "They were astronomical figures, what we were spending. We
were floored."

They studied both sides of the issue, and by 1994 they'd formed Efficacy,
with a philosophy of common sense and compassion. They kept their day jobs
while they struggled for almost two eyars to earn 501(c)(3) nonprofit
status from the IRS. The government lost their application twice and sent
them crisscrossing the continent chasing nonexistent documents.

The IRS granted the request in May 1996. Cliff suspects the mayhem was
caused by Efficacy's stance against the military-narco-industrial complex,
summed up in its motto, "Efficacy is the power to produce a desired effect.
The effect we wish to produce is peace."

Beating the IRS didn't satisfy Cliff Thornton. "My wife had been telling me
I had more to offer. 'We don't have long on Earth,' she said. I looked in
the mirror and I wasn't making a difference." So in September 1997 he left
his $70,000 middle-management job to do Efficacy full-time.

He writes for magazines and Efficacy's Website at www.efficacy-online.org,
and they publish pamphlets, which are translated into Spanish, and send out
1,000 quarterly newsletters. In between pursuing a master's degree in
counseling (on top of his MBA), Cliff plans regular television, radio and
speaking engagements for both of them. It's good, says Margaret, because
they have contrasting styles conveying the same message.

Although it's tough to make ends meet, Cliff has no regrets. "We're not out
to make money," he says. In fact, he says he never imagined he'd want to
change America's draconian drug policies, considering that for a long time
after high school, he wanted to eradicate drugs.

As a self-described hot-shock jock weeks from graduation in 1963, Cliff
says he had the shock of his life when a police officer plucked him from
his grandmother's breakfast table one Sunday. The cop drove him to
Hartford's North End to identify his mother's naked corpse. She'd been
found under a car, dead of an apparent heroin overdose.

"I thought all drugs should be wiped off the face of the Earth. This is
what they caused," he says. "I changed my thought pattern because I watched
Hartford, decade after decade, go downhill. It wasn't directly because of
drugs, but as I looked, I saw drugs went hand in hand with the rise in
crime and the downfall of local government, education, health care and race
relations."

The Thorntons are urging African-American leaders to address this
socio-economic genocide, which hurts minorities and children most. Their
own five adult children from previous marriages agree with their ideas,
Cliff says.

That's because when people confront the problem, they see that not even
"harm reduction" solves it. The first step is legalizing marijuana and
medicalizing heroin and cocaine, he says. "This reform has the potential to
become the next civil-rights movement. It's about power, coercion, control
and the use of fear to keep people separated.